How to File a Civil Suit (Part 1)

Today I want to give this lecture with a bit more depth for my fellow lawyers, about how a suit is filed. What is a suit? A suit is a collection, a complaint. How do you go and knock on the court's door, saying, I want this? Now what is a suit based on, and what does it consist of? A suit: 1. The complaint (plaint). 2. Documents attached with the complaint. 3. Documents the plaintiff relied on and which will be presented at the time of the complaint. 4. Documents not in the plaintiff's possession at the time of the complaint. 5. Documents the plaintiff intends to obtain through the relevant channel and present later.

Now what should be in the complaint? The complaint should set out, in detail, your position, from which the wrong is established. Suppose the suit is for partition, or for possession through partition. 1. The property concerned should be described in full detail. Complete detail, not a single detail should be missing. 2. This detail should include the property's boundaries on all four sides. Along with those boundaries, the property's value should be given. Along with that, your cause of action should be stated, which is of different kinds, one is continuous, this should be present. 3. Your jurisdiction should be stated in detail, that your pecuniary jurisdiction, and your territorial jurisdiction during the proceedings extended where, this should be present, and there should be a jurisdiction paragraph stating that this court has full authority to decide this matter. 4. The valuation of the suit. Now I'm asked repeatedly, how can a suit be valued? Keep this in mind, the valuation of a suit is always found within the content of your complaint. If the suit is for a specific amount, its value is very clearly written, that the deal was made for this much. If the suit is for partition, you assess its value according to your share, according to what share you're getting. If your suit is for a permanent injunction, meaning it doesn't involve any monetary value, that my property not be sold, or that I have rights in this property and I want him restrained from violating those rights, then the valuation for such a suit is even less than twenty-five thousand, that's fine. Now the valuation of the suit is one reason under Order 7 Rule 11, that if the suit's valuation isn't proper, the plaint should be rejected. Why is this important? It's important because ultimately the suit will be decided according to its valuation. If your suit's valuation isn't stated in the complaint, and the court fee hasn't been fixed according to that valuation, hasn't been set, then your plaint is defective and liable to be rejected.

Now when you file a complaint, you're told, sir, which one? Let me tell you along with the documents, although these are printed forms, but you can also write them yourself, if a printed form isn't available you can write it yourself, previously everything was written by hand. Now what does Order 7 Rule 19 say? That the person filing the suit, whom you call the plaintiff, and there can be more than one plaintiff, his correct address must be attached with the complaint, on a separate address sheet, and if his address is wrong, the suit can be dismissed, and if he changes his address during the proceedings, it is his responsibility to immediately inform the court, saying, I have changed my address, this is my new address. What's the purpose of this? The purpose is that just as the plaintiff knows the other party's address, the other party should know the plaintiff's full address, and then neither party, plaintiff or the other side, can later use the excuse that our address changed. If a decision goes in the plaintiff's favour and the defendant goes into appeal or revision, whatever the matter may be, he has to take the address from him. Now he takes the address and files it, and after filing gets a decision, and then tomorrow the plaintiff comes with an application saying, I never appeared, my address was written wrong, this isn't even my address, then the plaintiff can produce that address sheet, saying, sir, according to this address sheet this is the address, and he wrote it himself. He'll say, well, when it was filed, this was the address. Then the law kicks in: if it was changed after that, Order 7 Rule 19 says you were required to immediately inform the court and have it entered in the relevant register. That's why the address sheet's address is important. After this, you also need to attach a separate detailed list of the documents you attach with the complaint when filing the suit, one by one, under Order 13 Rule 1, this is its proforma, you need to mention every single document one by one, its copy, its copy, its copy, you attach all these documents so that if someone destroys any documents, you have proof that, sir, I had attached these documents, my documents have been destroyed, document number one.